


But I don't let it get me down

by verywhale



Category: Joker (2019)
Genre: Choking, Dubious Consent, Humiliation, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Games, Mirror Sex, Porn with Feelings, Power Bottom, Selfcest, Suicidal Thoughts, Withdrawal Symptoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:35:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22541080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verywhale/pseuds/verywhale
Summary: Arthur is famished; he's craving, dying without food, medicine, cigarettes, or some affection, attention, love. But it seems that his distorted reflection can give him only one of these things.
Relationships: Arthur Fleck/Joker (Joker 2019)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I rip my heart out of my chest and place it into @dan_dresdner's hands, for all help and encouragement she has given.

Sometimes the rattle of rain at night soothes one down, and its monotonous lullaby drops its weight on eyelids and instils the slumber. This time, it’s too loud, it’s agitating, like an annoying visitor that doesn’t understand the word ‘no.’

Arthur has nothing to stuff his ears with so the banging would cease. There’s no aid for his mouth, desiccated, cracking from slightest movements; or for his lungs or decayed brain either, for all orange jars and red boxes have been now empty. He should’ve saved one pill or cigarette for such a case. But he’s never considered his future, which now seems even so blank and pointless that any thoughts of it have no chance to rise. So Arthur has to listen. He has to endure.

It’s been the fifth day with no medication, maybe the sixth day, maybe the sixth week—his memory slips fast. The radio always tells the date and the weather and relevant news of the day, but Arthur doesn’t believe what he hears. Idle days and nights pass along the same road, with no end and no aim; but just one turn—and the new way is built; still as hollow as the old one, which you can no longer return to. At one point, all small travels between rooms feel like thousands of separate, useless days. The next week, it drags and blurs and fits in a single timeframe. One bus ride seems shorter and more bearable than one step from the couch towards the TV set; and this realization doesn’t even sound alarming anymore.

Arthur barely remembers it all, no matter the format. His memories are torn apart in wrong places, sewn back with the thickest needle by the sloppiest hand—one rash and this senseless patchwork falls into pieces again. Arthur picks them up but can’t recall the patterns, can’t read the passing events.

He tried to use his notebook for the purpose it’s not intended for—for making notes of things he’s unable to shove into his head. But the dates looked fake and the weather reports never matched the pictures behind the window. Yet he didn’t tear these pages out, neither did he cover them with new drawings or writings clogging his errant mind. It would be even more of a waste of ink and paper—this unstable period of abstinence had taught him to save up on his resources. Even if it was too late.

There is, however, one vision of the recent past, standing out in this wreck. It’s too overt, almost tangible; it manifests in every sense and sets Arthur on a fire of disgust and distress. It has a visage as pale as a moon, two smiles overlapping, and it smells of all things now unprocurable. It takes the pillow away from Arthur’s face and speaks to him.

“Come on, don’t hide from me.” It breathes out the noxious smoke, desirable and impossible, and Arthur tries to choke up the cough, his legs now tingling. “We just got a bit unlucky! We can always continue!”

It even has a specific lifetime, this carnal memory; so rare and disturbing these days. Setting: the bathroom in the Flecks’ apartment. It’s damp and foggy by both sides of the window. Time: eleven o’clock in the morning. Arthur has just left the shower, where he’s been mostly devouring the water falling on him, rather than letting it wash away sweat and soreness off his bruised back. It is so frail; a single touch would possibly create a new aching mark, or fracture one of these sublimely misplaced bones. Arthur runs his hand through his hair, all slick not from water but from weeks-old grease; but he can’t for once recall what he’s forgotten to do.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you reminding me of this?” Arthur waves his hand in front of his face, while this soft, almost insufferable laughter rings in his ears. Stinging, seething, it burrows him from inside.

The door is locked; he’s checked it at least four times. Still standing in the middle of the bathroom, soaked, towel forgotten in his hand, Arthur is trembling with cold. But it doesn’t make him more uncomfortable than he usually is. Whether he’s messing around in the kitchen, or hiding under his thin blanket, failing to fall asleep, or sitting on the creaky chair in the dim, doodling the shadows of his thoughts—he’s surrounded by a similar brutal cold. It twirls and binds his guts and tears his throat while he’s retching the empty air, and makes him feel naked even under a heap of clothes.

Arthur steps towards the mirror, still clouded and unable to show the reluctance painting his cheeks and neck pink.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Arthur mutters through the clenched teeth. Hot fingertips crawl along his neck and ear, fast as the raindrops sliding from the glass outside; tickling, working him on. Arthur grabs his wrist but doesn’t have enough strength or will to put it away.

All is waiting for him on the rack besides the sink: the jars of paints, the set of brushes. Arthur keeps them clean and arranged so they serve him for even longer than they are supposed to. His mother’s lipstick is also here; a forbidden treasure. The mirror is blind, but by a force of habit, Arthur still closes his eyes as he reaches for an impatient kiss. His lips are wet, but shut tightly and irresponsive—he hasn’t been expecting it yet.

“Wait till I put on my makeup,” he says; his chuckle displeases Arthur but he keeps his eyes closed. He licks his lips which are still blue from cold, and he can’t wait to smear them with red.

The laughter doesn’t stop; it follows Arthur from the bathroom into the living room, from the depths of his skull back into his ears. It creeps all over his body so each little hair rises and breaths become short and uneven. Arthur attempts to cover his face, but he still finds it among the drooping curls, futilely burying itself in the dusty couch. He’s amused at how Arthur makes himself even smaller than he already is.

He puts the brush in Arthur’s hand and lets him uncover his self. Arthur’s unusually hasty this time—his swipes are wide and harsh and he doesn’t bother to paint over some small bits left of his mask. That kiss still seems to fret him as his eyebrows keep twitching back and forth, just as the corners of his mouth.

“Take a smaller brush,” he says, but Arthur chooses not to listen. These ugly shapeless smears of blue—better than nothing, aren’t they?—they still don’t make his face look any less familiar; or any less enticing. Neither does this mimicry of a smile—ah, how careless, to break his mother’s precious lipstick like this. It’s no longer as common and cheap as it’s been in the times of her youth, but there’s no point proving her otherwise. Arthur picks up its residue from the sink and rubs it on generously. Now this is the biggest, happiest smile ever seen. More room for more kisses.

The couch creaks under the weight of psychosis made flesh. He leaves Arthur no more place to hide as he mounts. Arthur wouldn’t be able to unbend his limbs without having to hurt self over his bones without giving in to his sordid ways. He’s had it enough with laughter, but the wounds it has drilled on Arthur’s body refuse to heal. And this taut, sickening silence only adds more color and sensation to that vicious memory.

Sloppy, slushy, still too uncertain; such are Arthur’s kisses. Each of them tightens the knots in his stomach and around his legs. He scrunches his eyes up, barely standing still. Even while throbbing and shriveling from starvation, he keeps thinking if he uses too much tongue. There are no complaints coming from the other side, however, holding Arthur’s cheek as fondly as Arthur holds his. A giggle resounds a moment before Arthur remembers of his fingers, all smudged with lipstick; and a thin choked moan leaves him right until they slip into his mouth. Its taste is treacly, more subtle and gummy than one of the paint. He sucks it off and doesn’t stop when a different taste of red fills him. His teeth strip off the phalanges from skin and flesh and Arthur writhes as he slowly sates his hunger.

All that Arthur’s left to do is to grumble quietly, gestating enmity which now glides over his former contempt like a bitter slick of mold glides over fruit. His deprivation itself turns to devour him, while something tediously smoulders under his ribs and between his legs. To dance upon each rib, to press the lips against the hip where the skin is so thin and sultry; he whispers with his mouth closed, he fondles with his hands far away.

He can laugh as much as he wants. Or as much as Arthur doesn’t want him to. He can laugh at how silly his lips look when hunting for a kiss, or how he hardly keeps himself from slipping on a flat floor. Rather transparent than white, his briefs have stuck to the wet skin and folded uncomfortably. To untuck them would mean to distract and return to the crude reality where Arthur is standing in front of the mirror, all messy and foolish and sensual for all things that are wrong—so he tosses this thought away while still hearing the echoes of cackle. His lashes flutter while he struggles not to open his eyes; Arthur frowns in response to his shameful amusement.

He can enjoy this freakshow as much as he wants. But there are two rules he chooses to obey, even without much pleading and stirring from Arthur.

First, he never talks.

He can forward his sleazy comments and adoration into Arthur’s heart, and down his bloodstream so it floods every inch of his body until he loses control of his breaths. But no outer noise must be made. Be it some inherent repulsion or just a matter of cover-up—both excuses are funny and satisfying enough.

Second, he never puts the briefs down.

Yet how lovely it must be, to expose himself to the bathroom walls and curtains and his grinning reflection. To let his eyes follow his stubborn hand while it rubs his cock, barely hardening, rarely twitching as his mind jumps from one distraction to another. Instead of spreading out, these warm pulsations rack up and ache and force Arthur to bump his head against the glass all over and over.

Like an ashtray full of dead orange tips, often chewed and torn down, Arthur’s head is full of yearnings, contorted and nameless and hopeless. Like the urges to burn and cut the skin, to see red streaks and black dots, and to revel in itches and jitters, these cravings are shared between two of them. Rare collective possessions; they are often out of bounds, so Arthur cherishes them once he gets the chance.

Teeth and fists clutched, lips stetched so wide that they pop and start bleeding; Arthur continues to watch the slides of that memory. He finds his arm sneaking between his curled legs, and he squeezes it so it will never move. They both hiss with a millisecond gap. Such is the test of endurance.

Even the most gentle caressing, the long-awaited touch of affection he’s been famished for—it pains him, it draws thin gleaming streaks down from the corners of his squinted eyes. But Arthur keeps stroking, keeps extorting these yearnings. They grow and blaze, stuff him with shocks and stings so intense that his cock becomes almost numb; and so does his hand, bent weirdly and jammed under the rubber band. But he doesn’t want to stop.

If Arthur let the briefs fall, allowed himself to move more freely, he would choke himself with the stench of that slime and sweat and blind himself with how swollen and flushed he’s made himself be. But he tries not to focus on such details. This is where they differ; so Arthur leaves his skull vacant for him to lick it clean from diversions and worries. He doesn’t rush, however; he takes his moment to savour each pesky thought.

Ah, how cute it must be, to force Arthur’s eyes open and watch him as he stares at his bare self with a mix of delight and repulsion. To hear him trying to say something, to prod another self-hating and self-shaming idea, only to find that his voice is too slurred and no words can take any sensible shape. To shove his face into the blue and red and white plastered on the mirror. Almost in panic, Arthur would run his fingers over his hair, over his right cheek, finally discover the tacky kick of paint on his tongue. But he agrees to keep the pants on.

He notices how the faint nagging rain has turned into a storm. How the sky has grown pale and the city has woken up, now staring, peering, pointing and howling—but he hasn’t got his pleasure yet, neither the punishment—he must hurry, must stop dragging _this_ moment—out of impatience he grows sharper, longer nails, the skin on his palm turns into sandpaper—bulbous veins are about to pop, and it’s just the hissing and growling that get in the way of his restrained breaths—and the rain continues to bother him, to call for him, bang the door until he stops—the door?—

“Happy! Happy, what are you doing in there? Don’t you hear me?”

And a burst of laughter, vile and obnoxious, breaks through Arthur’s eardrums and spits over his burning face.

“M-mom?.. Y-yes, I hear! Gimme a second, I’ll open it!”

“I’ve been knocking this door for at least five minutes!”

The briefs have many red spots. He’s never removed the lipstick from the left hand, now exhausted, falling apart as he fails to grab a doorknob. There’s too much haste to see and to care that he’s put his sweater on the wrong side out.

“I’m sssorry, mom, I was so— so engaged with my s-stand-up practice—”

Dried mess on the mirror, dried mess on the cheek. A towel lying like a piece of trash where it shouldn’t be. Whatever this heavy smell is, it’s not how a timed shower smells. Arthur looks around through his mother’s eyes, and regrets that he cannot pull his sweater on his crotch and his head at the same time.

“What practice? What’s with your makeup? Ah, whatever...”

“Mom, please— gimme one— one more minute, I-I will clean it all—”

Arthur shakes his hands at her before suddenly hiding them behind. He doesn’t hear his yelp or her almost indifferent scolding. He can’t hear them while that storm and deafening farce and tears boiling in his throat blow him away as he attempts to speak.

“Happy… _please_ , get out and— collect yourself, alright? I’m so tired of waiting for you to free the bathroom… wait, what is it in the sink? Happy?”

Arthur falls on his back, limbs spread wide, fist ready to slam into someone’s jaw. It would hurt them both if he stayed here with his travesties. But there’s nobody towering Arthur, nobody blocking his motions and breaths, whispering, disconcerting—and the rain goes on, and the sky is still dull and black—and nobody looks over him as he punches the couch’s backrest and kicks the air and thrusts his wrist into one of his tingling eyes. His lips still bleed, and he feels the remains of that halted torment frothing inside.


	2. Chapter 2

To make a little flink, to bring the flame to a cigarette and let the smoke fill in fissures in his dried mouth and lungs. To let the luscious poison reach the heart and the brain, to infect yourself with its pernicious spice, to pour thick tar inside and drown the headache in it.

He can’t access even such trivial pleasures anymore. And his desperate coveting, even more than the bodily weakness, pins him to the couch, forces him to stare mindlessly at how the room changes its shades with the flow of time. The haunting mauve slowly blending into washed-out browns and yellows; gross to some degree, reminding him of previous days wasted in gloom. Mom will wake up soon, and Arthur must compel himself to go to the kitchen and make breakfast for her. So little food left in the fridge and the drawers; he doesn’t favor himself even with crumbs she leaves on a plate. He saves everything just for her, not to make her question the real state of their reserves.

But how to make yourself do any movement other than involuntary twitches? How to raise and stand still on your feet when they are studded with hundreds of needles? How to greet mom with a kind word if all his yearnings have shredded his throat and all innards to pieces? To continue his care of her when the lot of his own needs keeps stacking and crushing him?

He picks up the collar of his knitwear shirt, all sweat-drenched, sticking to his skin. The air is so dense, so sickening, as if Arthur’s thoughts have vaporized and now flow above him—yet don’t allow him to leave and take a breath somewhere else. The same old thoughts, tormenting him through decades. Something he thought to be used to; just as he should be used to the scratching throat in the absense of smokes, or to the empty maw of his stomach loudly devouring itself.

It must had been that night in the subway when they took control, and he watched himself give in. Watched himself pull the trigger, stop their heartbeats, spray their blood over the stairs and the windows. He watched his shadow run in front of him in the tunnel, towards that shelter with its stained mirrors and cracking lights; watched that shadow wear his somber broken mask as he’d been leading him in their nonsensical dance. His lips were trembling, emptiness in his chest expanding, fear and fever took away his ability to speak. But he continued his dance from the subway car, through the outskirts and all way towards his home; and Arthur watched him do it.

Same vest, same shirt, new face and hair—almost polished, almost unfitting to that memory and that tingle in Arthur’s ears. He’s sitting atop, doesn’t let Arthur move. His legs are bare, apart from old white socks sagging down his bone-thin ankles.

He lets out a hazy chuckle, a sheepish smile that makes him look even more miserable; and Arthur is gagged by the weight of his presence. What can he do to shove him back into the depths of his mind, somewhere in the distant dark, cluttered by some more mundane, more sensible things? To return to that realm where he’s been invisible, where Arthur’s concerns have remained their incoherent forms?

Today the paints on his face are almost translucent, and Arthur can read his features way too clearly, even in the murk of the morning. Today his notions slip freely into Arthur’s head, step out of the blur; too acute, they pierce his ears and bends of his body. All heated and sound like tongs, his thighs are firmly clenched around Arthur’s.

Arthur tries to pick up insults and pleas—something spiteful to drive him away, or something foolish to kill the tension before it resolves. For someone who pretends to be the one to give him love, he takes too much joy in seeing Arthur at his lowest, all wet and wretched, palms clutched between his pained legs. He tries to collect all scattered bits of his frustation and aim them towards that writhing, derisive figure above him. For all unwanted visits, urges he places into Arthur’s head, for swaying and rubbing himself through Arthur’s tightened briefs as he’s doing now—must be all teasing, heaving his own pleasure from Arthur’s discomfort.

But tinnitus and heat of his longing messes up with Arthur’s focus. Through the mist of unease and exhaustion, Arthur peers into his eyes, scarcely detects what _he_ is focused on instead.

He sees that he follows the slightest twitches of Arthur’s lips; thin and pale, disturbed by his jitters, slashed by that little cleft. One imperfection among many, each equally charming; and he kisses it before catching his upper lip—always the first to start fluttering when Arthur’s distressed. Arthur stares at him wide-eyed, heart jumps up to his throat. Just a moment ago he’s been full in his view; and now he’s pinching Arthur’s lips with his own, repeatedly, faintly, leaving quiet gasps in between. Arthur’s hands shake as his tongue runs across these little bite wounds which never heal. He grabs his shoulder but doesn’t push it away as he wanted at first.

But Arthur’s grip isn’t firm enough to keep him close, as he withdraws again, his hand now latched on to the rubber band. Still in haze, flushing and flashing, swinging his hand in some hopeless motions— _what are you doing, leave it, we had an agreement_ —Arthur watches him slowly pull the briefs down. He’s now freezing right where their lips have touched, cannot utter a single word. Arthur watches as his gravely cold hand grasps hold of his cock while he lifts himself—there is nothing beneath that wrinkled shirt he’s stolen. Arthur’s ragged breath stops when he forces himself on and jams Arthur inside him; inside the mute blackness pulsing around and choking him.

Arthur tilts his head, drops his elbow above his eyes, but it is forced away before he could turn all his senses off. The vision returns, but it only fuels the twinge; he’s made to watch and listen again. To watch little grunts escape his mouth, warped with a grin; to listen to thick drops of paints mixed with sweat drip off his face. Arthur could shut his eyes tight but this image would only stay as vivid and noisy. Another farce, another sick joke; it cannot be anything else.

Mouth reshaping itself, downcast gaze, face endlessly melting and weeping. He’s hunched, green hair falling on his cheeks, as if he’s hiding himself from Arthur’s resentful stare. He’s digging his nails into Arthur’s shirt while he keeps bouncing, but he doesn’t aim for even more pain. Instead, his fingers follow the rhythm of hasty, jagged movements of Arthur’s stomach as he’s desperately fights for breath.

It’s never enough. His gasps get faster and faster; Arthur’s about to bring a palm to his mouth, for how obscenely loud his voice grows with every exertion. His drained, quivering stomach; it must be as pale and hot and slushy as the rest of his skin. Nothing would stop him from rolling the edge of the shirt, or diving his hand underneath; from hearing the pitch of Arthur’s voice raise even more. This is what Arthur would expect him to do.

But he only slows his tempo and lifts his head, lets their eyes meet. Arthur glares into them, looks for signs of mockery, for anything that would make his eyes wet and itching, hot blood fill his pulsing, aching head. And he keeps looking and searching for it behind that gleam and these half-closed eyelids, as he refuses to believe it doesn’t exist.

When Arthur is tense like this, only the upper lip is throbbing familiarly; yet the rest of his face gets stiff, almost paralyzed, sharp bones stepping out brashly just like on his whole gaunt body. And his neck gets stiff, thick vessels pumping; and his fragile malformed arms get stiff, embraced by sweat-drenched red fabric; and his cock inside him also gets stiff, hardens even more as he thrusts himself in.

For a moment or two he stops for Arthur to focus. Arthur squints and hisses; his skinny fingers are everywhere at once. They burrow through his unkempt hair, caress the heated skin behind his ears, slide over his narrow cheekbones, long dimples around his mouth. One finger stops in the notch on his neck, two others press gently against hard peaks on his chest. Usually Arthur wears so many clothes, so many layers in which his sick, slender, disproportionate frame still drowns like in an infinite sea. Now this shirt is so sticky and clammy so there’s no difference between wearing it or being naked.

And everywhere he runs his fingers over, he wants to follow up with his lips. With every touch, his eyelashes shiver and his panting shapes into words; dreamy, shameful, almost unneeded epithets Arthur tries to shoo away as soon as he puts them into his head. Wherever he’s touched and admired and wanted, it makes him shiver and fall apart in even more smaller shards. The starvation is so dire in its intensity that his body already rejects all the gifts it is given.

His face keeps melting and warping, but Arthur can still recognize his stolen traces beneath the paints and dazes. Yet they aren’t shaped into an expression of fear, of disbelief or stifled anger; aren’t made into a perfect reflection. His smile is never forced, there’s rarely any pain in the glow of his eyes. He thinks this is why Arthur occassionally hunts for his presence, asks him to stay around for longer and gets worked up when he doesn’t—or when he reminds Arthur of such wishes. He feels that something inside Arthur stirs every time he meets this wieldy, discordant version of self. He sees that subtle change in his posture when they talk or when they kiss—when _he_ makes Arthur talk or kiss, do anything he wouldn’t dare to commit on his own.

But even with his cheeks flaming and voice shattering, Arthur will not admit that there’s anything desirable about what they are doing. Their shared gasps, smiles flashing among the mess which used to be their faces, the sweet pressure extending from his cock to each limb and joint. He will expect his pleasure to backfire in any way that later will make him bring a lighter or scissors’ edges to his skin—it always does. A moment of bliss followed by an eternity of disgust, an urge for love replaced by an urge for hate. Like the dreadful mangled scribbles, trapped on the pages of his notebook, the remains of his solace will haunt him in the light of day. Like everything he has ever forced on Arthur, everything he has made him enjoy and resent.

He will hold his weapons with the right hand today; and it will be his more erratic side hissing and squealing from the anticipated pain. He will uselessly cover his mouth while the laughter erupts from it and the void inside him implodes. And nothing will bring more panic and more dissonance to this laughter other than a futile desire to stop himself; and Arthur will sit on the backstage of his own mind and watch him do it. And his glossy green hair will turn brittle like charcoal, and his stomach will turn and twist itself from the stench the lighter brought to his hair creates. Sharp and precise like the most truthful and unwanted trick, the scissors will stick out of his ear, or his neck, or that place where human beings have a heart—any spot that will make him wail until his voice dissolves. Maybe he won’t even need to bring out a gun—or he will anyway—he will imagine that his temple is like that wall in his room, and how lovingly he will touch and kiss and admire that hole he’ll have made; and how euphoric his smile will be after his breath stops forever. For everything he has ever made Arthur love and be loved for.

Humidity fills and overflows him, he can no longer hold himself steady on the top. He has to drop limp, his narrow back shaking and flickering without rhythm. And he draws his hands towards Arthur; and Arthur draws his hands towards him too, but he places them lower than he would expect; and instead of caressing Arthur starts squeezing.

His eyes pop wide; his ears and a thin line between his hair and melted greasepaint take an even brighter shade of red. His neck is caught in this tender embrace which makes him wheeze and resort to short chaotic breaths through his nostrils. As the hand tightens, the blur in front of him dissipates; he sees snapped red vessels in Arthur’s eyes, frayed edges of his clasped teeth. The throes are like thorns; they are on his tongue, behind his ears, inside his hips where they are pressed to Arthur’s sides. He swallows unvoluntarily, cold streaks of sweat too tangible on his flamed skin. His neck pulses and heaves under the clasp, he coughs and itches and twitches; he isn’t aware if he’s weeping or laughing, if it is choking or jerking that takes away his breath, his strength and the ground beneath him. Arthur coughs and itches and twitches; he cuts off his own bloodflow and mindlessly stares into nothingness, smothers himself until the white noise deafens him and everything stops existing.

He doesn’t hear his own shriek, doesn’t realize how loud it’s been; as well as the exhausted moans that follow it as he climaxes. His eyes are shut, his body is still convulsing, doesn’t seem to recover. Wet palms cup his face, and Arthur kisses him, jams his lips between his. Arthur expects for him to withdraw once the kiss grows painful, but instead he responds, slips his tongue through his teeth. Arthur himself lets him free, lets them both to catch some air.

How lovely it would be to open his eyes, to see the mess he has left. To feel the warmth and the weight above him suddenly disappear, to find his left hand still grasping his cock, to have heady, repugnant smells hit him in the nose. To see only the cold walls and noisome city behind the windows as he’s lying lonely, pathetic, half-naked, still clinging at the remnants of that flagrance he’s dared to relish.

So Arthur keeps his eyes closed, while listening to his fading blissful breaths and his heart unevenly thump against the other.


End file.
